Bill Johnson - The Value of Delay (How God Uses Delayed Answers to Prayer)
Good morning, thank you, good morning! Good morning! Nice to see you. Have you ever waved to someone who was waving at you, only to realize they weren’t actually waving at you? This is the funniest one I’ve heard: I waved to a man because I thought he was waving at me. Apparently, he was waving at another woman, so to escape the awkward situation, I kept my hand up, and a taxi pulled over and drove me to the airport. I’m now living in Poland, starting a new life. Oh, I think that’s so funny! These are actually two different headlines; I’ll let you do the math. Twelve percent of Americans, mostly men, are eating half of our beef supply. Twelve percent? Here’s another headline: eighty-eight percent of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. We’ll just leave it right there. Yes, yes, one more: I can tell people are judgmental just by looking at them.
All right, all right, grab your Bibles and open to Exodus chapter 32. We actually have three stories we’re going to look at, so turn to Exodus 32, put a piece of paper in 1 Samuel 13, and then I’ll give you the third one later. I have the exciting privilege to talk to you about the importance of delay and depression that just entered the room. I could feel the shift take place. It’s a miracle! How many of you, if I were to offer you $1,000 today or $2,000 in 30 days, would wait for the $2,000? There’s value in delay! Talk to us, Kingdom! I said if I were able, I would offer $1,000 today or $2,000 in 30 days. Most of us would wait thirty days. Why? Because we understand that more is better. In the Kingdom, delays are always gaining interest. But they’re more important than that; they’re not just gaining interest and momentum. The Lord actually causes some delays so that we can see what’s in our hearts that He sees but we don’t know is there.
All right, let’s read the Bible, and then hopefully this will make sense, and then we’ll pray for God to hurry up! I like quick answers! We’re going to read several stories, and I will need to abbreviate and skip around a bit, so just follow with me. How many of you have your Bibles? Let me see, hold them up! All right! Exodus 32:1: When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered together to Aaron and said to him, «Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.» Aaron said to them, «Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.» So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He received the gold from their hand, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, «This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.» Man, that’s dumb! They just kept saying, «As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt,» and moments later, there’s a golden calf and they’re announcing, «This is the god that brought us out?» They just made it! And he was the one who brought you out of Egypt yesterday! Honestly, idolatry is that stupid. Yes! But lest you think we are free from idolatry, in the New Testament, idolatry is called greed. Idolatry is greed in the New Testament, and to understand how it fits into the biblical scope of things, you will often hear the phrase or the word «idol,» «idolatry,» and «adultery» or «fornication» in the same sentence, because idolatry in the spirit is what adultery is in the natural. There are often tandem sins—when a value breaks down for materialism, it often is weakened in the moral area as well, or vice versa. That’s not the subject for today, though. You guys all right?
I know you look excited, and I can hardly contain myself standing in front of you with the privilege of talking about delay, but I’m going to fight through this anyway! I get one more chance to try this; I’ve tried twice already. I’ve got two strikes; this one is going to be at least a single! All right, let’s keep moving here. This is your god that brought you out of the land of Egypt! So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. Aaron made a proclamation: «Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord!» I don’t know if he’s trying to cover his tracks or what, but he builds an altar and announces they’re going to celebrate to the Lord. God doesn’t share His throne with golden calves.
Moses, in verse 7, the Lord spoke to Moses and said, «Get down, for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.» Now again, we don’t have time to go through the whole dialogue, but this is one of my most fun chapters in the Bible because God says to Moses, «Your people that you brought up out of the land of Egypt.» In the verses that follow, Moses talks to God, and Moses is saying, «Wait! These aren’t my people. These are your people. I didn’t bring them out of the land of Egypt; you brought them out!» Then he continues to pray and ask for mercy for a people that God was about to destroy. It says in verse 14, «The Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.» Here’s the first thing I want you to see: There are times and things set in motion that the Lord is wanting, out of the integrity of your heart, to stop what has been set in motion.
How many of you understand that sin requires judgment? So, judgment has been declared against a specific thing. If there’s no one to pray, it will happen. What does God want? Someone to pray. All right, hopefully, that will make more sense in a bit. Let’s go to the next story in 1 Samuel chapter 13. You know when Moses comes down, he confronts Aaron for building this golden calf, and Aaron says to him, «I threw the gold in the fire, and out came this calf.» Did he really think Moses was going to fall for that? «I threw gold in, and this calf just walked out!» That’s the intelligence of idolatry.
In 1 Samuel 13, Israel is surrounded by the Philistine army. They are very outnumbered. The army is afraid. As you read through the chapter, you’ll find that some of the soldiers are hiding in caves, some of them are behind bushes, anywhere they can hide. There’s a select group that’s with Saul and they’re starting to leave because they’re becoming very afraid. In verse 8, it says he waited seven days according to the time set by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from him. So Saul said, «Bring a burnt offering and a peace offering here to me,» and he offered the burnt offering. Now it happened as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering that Samuel came, and Saul went out to meet him that he might greet him.
Samuel said, «What have you done?» Saul said, «When I saw that the people were scattered from me and that you did not come within the days appointed and that the Philistines gathered together at Mishmash, I said, 'The Philistines will come down to me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication before the Lord.'» What’s going on here? Let me give you a little bit of context. First of all, it is illegal for Saul, a king—not a prophet, not a priest, a king—to offer this particular offering to the Lord. It’s illegal; it’s forbidden.
So, he has offered an illegal sacrifice. Why did he do it? He just told us why. He said, «Number one, the people were scattering.» You’ll notice both Aaron and Saul sinned; their sin began with the fear of man. But Aaron was under pressure from leaders wanting him to make a golden calf, so there’s the fear of people’s opinions. And here, in this case, the people were scattering from me. He’s already displaying tons of insecurity as a leader.
Now, whenever the Lord exposes insecurities in us, He’s doing us a favor. Insecurity is wrong; security exposed. Come on! So, number one, the people are scattering. Number two, «Samuel, the prophet, you didn’t come when you said you would!» Do you notice someone’s not taking ownership of their actions? «You didn’t come when you said you would come!» And number three, the Philistine army is set up, and I wanted to do the spiritual thing and offer a sacrifice. No fear of God for offering an illegal offering—an illegal sacrifice—to the Lord!
So in both of these situations, we have delays caused by the Lord. Now, why would the Lord want to cause a delay? It’s never punishment! When a breakthrough has been delayed—something we prayed for, something we fought for, and it’s not coming in the time we felt it should come—it brings to the surface things that are in us that we didn’t know were there.
What do we have here with Saul? It’s your fault, Samuel, because you didn’t come when you said you would come! Moses, we don’t know what’s become of him! We saw the fire, the lightnings, everything on the mountain where Moses went up to meet with God. We don’t know if he’s still alive! We can’t live here forever! Make us a god that will take us from here into the promised land!
What’s the whole point? The point is that what was in the hearts of the children of Israel as they came out of Egypt—a land that worshiped all kinds of false gods—was that they still had Egypt in their hearts. And it was the delay that brought it to the surface.
Now, why would God do that? If we know that His heart is not to bring shame or guilt, that stuff never helps us at all, so He exposes what’s in our hearts so that we can confess. Because when I recognize what I didn’t see before, I can acknowledge it. Confession is to agree with God. I acknowledge it; I now have the grace to forsake. He says, «Confess and forsake.» God, in His mercy, allows a delay so that I see something I couldn’t have seen without the delay, so that I can then agree with God, confess, and forsake And He strengthens the foundation upon which He can build something more significant than before.
But if I continuously react to delay by blaming people, «Well, it’s their fault! You didn’t come when you said you would come!» The list goes on and on. God appeared to talk with Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit. He talked to Adam and said, «What did you do?» He said, «It was the woman you gave me.» The Lord asked Eve, «What did you do?» She said, «It was the serpent.» There’s always the deflection of responsibility. By deflecting responsibility, we actually delay our own progress.
The crazy thing is we all hate delay, right? I like instant answers! I like the fastest answers possible! I’m not a fan of delay, but what happens when I don’t take ownership of what God is dealing with in me? I add my delay to God’s delay. Brilliant! You cannot speed up God’s process, but you can slow it down. It’s an issue of lordship.
Did I ask you the question? Yes, the $1,000. So, $1,000 today or $2,000 in 30 days—because you know that $2,000 is coming in 30 days! You can give thanks today, and it’s logical! Yeah, I mean, you actually can feel thankful today ahead of time! When He says to give thanks in everything, it’s actually logical from a Kingdom perspective. It’s from Divine reasoning. Of course, He’s in charge! He’s the Sovereign Lord! I’m walking in obedience. In 30 days, it’s going to be better than today. Of course, I’m going to give thanks today!
Both of these stories, the two we’ve read, both have the fear of man at the heart of the issue, and the delays that were caused—Moses' delay and Samuel’s delay—actually brought things to the surface in the hearts of God’s people that they wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
So this is the point I’m trying to make: When there’s a delay, anxiety is like the cause of spiritual dementia. Anxiety is what causes us to forget God’s promises, to forget what He has done. We don’t recall as clearly the testimonies of the Lord. All those things are dialed up when there’s a delay. Learning how to simplify in the delayed seasons, I think, is critical.
Being able to simplify my life from being spread too thin helps me keep anchored in what God has said. I return to the same verses over and over again, the same prayers, the same disciplines of coming before the Lord, confessing what He has promised, declaring what He has promised. That battle over the heart and mind is huge in seasons of delay. It may feel like there’s no progress, but the progress is the fact that I haven’t changed the subject. The progress is the fact that I’ve stuck with what God has said.
You know, the thing I’ve referenced probably a dozen times in the last few years is that the Lord is constantly measuring us—the testing of the Lord. It’s not testing to find out if we’re doing something wrong, but it’s the measuring of what we can carry. He’s looking to cause His glory to rest upon a people in such a significant way, but the weightiness of God on a fractured foundation increases the brokenness—not the kind of brokenness that’s humility, but the brokenness that’s humiliation. There is a difference.
The weightiness of God that He is looking to put upon people, because there’s going to be a glorious Church—Jesus is returning for a bride whose body is in equal proportion to her head—come on, sir! Not a jigsaw He has to put together in heaven. There’s the constant measurement: «Yeah, but you didn’t come when you said you’d come! The prophet said it would happen by the first of the month!» «Yeah, but when I was fasting and praying, this is what I felt the Lord said, and it still hasn’t happened!»
He sees in me what I don’t see in myself. He sees the beauty I don’t see. He sees what needs to be changed. I may see this much; He sees this much. Yes, in His kindness, He places me in situations so that I can see what He sees. Because if I see what He sees, I can agree with what He says. And if I agree with what He says and make confession, I have the grace to forsake.
All right, I get one more chance! I want you to look at the next story with me; the next one is actually my favorite of the three. It’s in 1 Samuel 24. I admire David so much. This is talking about David before he’s king. He’s been prophesied over by Samuel to be the next king of Israel; he’s been anointed, actually an ordination, if you will, to be king. From the time that he was prophesied and anointed to be king to when he became king was, I forget exactly, eleven or thirteen years. So, that’s a significant delay!
We’ve got a guy—the women are singing songs: «Saul killed his thousands, David his ten thousands!» Everyone’s ready for him to be king, and now Saul is jealous and wants to kill him. It’s not a momentary rage; it becomes a lifestyle where, for years, he attempts to kill this man. David, when you’re being chased by a demonized crazy man, it does something to shape your character. If there’s anything that David does not feel like in these moments, where he is forced to go live among the Philistines—the pronounced enemy of Israel—is a king.
Now he’s hiding in the back of a cave, and when we come to this story, it says in verse 3 of chapter 24, «So he came to the sheepfolds by the road, where there was a cave, and Saul went in to attend to his needs. David and his men were staying in the recesses of the cave. Then the men of David said to him, 'This is the day which the Lord said to you: Behold, I will deliver your enemies into your hand, that you may do to him as seems good to you.'» Notice the prophetic anointing coming upon all his men at this point! They began to prophesy and remind him of the promises of God about him being king.
David arose and secretly cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. Now it happened afterward that David’s heart troubled him because he cut Saul’s robe. He said to his men, «The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord!» Here’s the situation: David, Saul is sleeping, David goes over and just cuts off a piece of his robe, and he’s convicted because he tarnished the appearance—can I say reputation? —of his leader. Help us! Help us!
There are times when God puts within reach the ability to bring about the fulfillment of your own word. I have a piano; I like my piano. It’s a testimony; it came from our last house. We sold our home with most of the furniture in it; the piano was in it when we bought the home. Now I’m in a new home, and my late wife is not with me anymore. When I bought this home, I had no piano. I wanted one. I have credit cards, and they work really well. If I wanted to, it is within my power to get the piano now. I don’t like waiting. Is that true? That’s a hundred percent true! Gabe is saying, «That’s a hundred percent!» I’m not sure I like his tone of voice, but there’s a choice I have: I can get a piano or I can go through the process to obtain one as a provision of the Lord—a savings account, no credit card—so that I now have a piano that is a testimony, reminding me when I see it of God’s nature, His promise, and His ability to provide.
It now speaks to me beyond a material possession! I can have a material possession, or I can have a piece of my walk with Jesus that is represented by a physical item. It is often within our reach to fulfill our own destiny in our own prophetic word, but we have to add a lot of carnality and flesh to the fulfillment, and it limits the measure of glory that God is going to put upon our lives or that situation. Did that make any sense at all? I feel like I’m speaking in riddles, so just bear with me. It is possible to bring about our own conclusion in certain parts of our lives.
David had the opportunity, according to the prophets who were prophesying to him, that this is the opportunity God has provided for you. This is the word of the Lord for you: you now get to do to your enemy this demonized man who’s been trying to kill you, and he has no right to go against you because God has anointed you to be King of Israel.
So he processes through all of that. He cuts off the corner of his robe and then feels guilt because he tarnished the image of his leader, regardless of how ungodly he is. Until God removes him, he’s his leader, right? He repents; Saul leaves the cave, calls out to him, and shows him what he did. There’s a repentance! Saul was temporarily remorseful for trying to kill him, but he tried to do it again later. The point was David refused to bring about the fulfillment of his own word and his own promise.
That’s the temptation in delay. The temptation is during delay to use my ability to fulfill my need, my word, and my purpose, my promise—rather than to participate in a Kingdom fashion with God’s process. God’s process to me—forgive me for this analogy—is kind of like health food. It’s important, but it’s slow. It’s slow! I mean, I’ll be honest with you, I’d rather go to a—do I eat healthy? I have so many vitamins; it’s a meal! It’s a meal all by itself just with what I take. So I believe in it; I’m committed to it. I’m committed to a healthy lifestyle, exercise, the whole thing.
But sometimes I’d rather just take medication, because it usually works within like two or three days, whereas vitamins are going to take me six months to get that into my system! I am so sorry I said all of the last five minutes! It’s as accurate as can be! Medication, medication, yes, that’s what I meant—prescription medication! I fear there is no recovery! Medication, yes, that’s a much better term! Wisdom just kicked in!
But it wasn’t from me; it was from the front row, so that’s good! God’s process is slow because His interest isn’t in the outcome; it’s in the process. It’s in the journey! See, I like the outcome! I like the fulfilled promise! I like the piano in the room! I like the child that’s born after years of trying! I like the answer of breakthrough, the business opening! I like the outcomes!
But what we are in the journey is what He values. It’s the day-by-day decisions to renew the mind. It’s the day-by-day decisions to put on our lips the word of the Lord that we confess, that we declare, that we pray, that we sing, that we prophesy! We take what God has said; we take what He is saying; we guard our hearts with those things. It’s the journey; it’s the process that He values most!
The outcome is easy! It takes nothing to take Israel out of Egypt and just plant them in the promised land! But they don’t have the character to stay there! They’ll wander out if they don’t go through a journey to get there! The maturity developed in the journey is what keeps them there!
For your life and mine, it’s the journey; it’s the process that enables us to steward well the fulfillment of the promise. The delay is to help me see what is hard for me to see otherwise. I’ve told you before, jokingly, so just remember this is a joke, which I’m kind of running out of. This cat has nine lives, and I’m on my ninth one.
So I don’t need the fruits of the spirit if I don’t have you in my life! See, the whole issue is every one of us can distance ourselves from other people and consider ourselves to be at a level of maturity that we have no idea what it’s like to live at that level. Why? Because we have no one that rubs us the wrong way! We have no one that we’re in conflict with! We have no one that we have to be patient with! If you had all the money in the world, you wouldn’t know what it’s like to pray for your next meal! You wouldn’t know what it’s like to fight for a breakthrough in simple things!
And the Lord, in His mercy, brings about delays so that we can become the people that are not just independently strong, but collectively strong! So we become a people that represent Him well because we are a community! Delays reveal what I don’t want to see, but I need to see because it helps create in me an awareness of my need for dependency.
The last comment that I’ll make: Humility—it’s not thinking of yourself in a bad way; humility is just seeing yourself as you are. And delays help us to see us as we are! Now, I’m not praying for you to have any delays; I’m praying for God to hurry! Now, it’s a biblical prayer—there is this prayer where the psalmist is praying, «God, make haste; make haste!» It means hurry!
So I like that prayer! It doesn’t mean He’s going to do it; it just means it’s legal to pray it! I somehow feel comforted by just saying, «God, please hurry!» Things get exposed in us—in Israel, in Saul, and in something in David that was gold in Israel.
In Saul, it was ugly; it was caused by delay. But some of you have faced things in recent days that, in another season of your life, would have really caused you to question the Lord. But He’s exposed something in you that’s beautiful and strong! He exposed something in you, much like He did with David, where He brought an opportunity for him to bring about his own promotion into kingship. He gave him the opportunity, and he saw the beauty of integrity of his own heart.
Who felt embarrassed for just even blemishing, tarnishing his image before his people, Saul’s image before his people? Some of you have gone through things in recent days where you’ve been surprised at yourself—that your first response was to pray and not to get angry; that your first response was to forgive and not to withdraw; that your first response was, «God, I must walk a non-offending lifestyle!» And that was your first response, and a year ago that wouldn’t have been the case!
Remember as a kid, my bike would get a flat tire, and I’d take it down to the store for them to repair it. They would take the inner tube out of the tire and fill it full of air. Then they’d put that inner tube under the water and keep rotating it around until air bubbles revealed where the hole is in the inner tube. Once they found the hole, they don’t put it back on the tire; they first patch it, and then they don’t put it back on the rim. They fill it full of air again, and the second time they put it under pressure is for a different reason—not to expose where the leak is, but to expose that the repair worked!
The Lord puts us under pressure to expose the need so that we know what to recognize, acknowledge, and confess! And then, once He’s done His work, under pressure again, so that we become confident in the grace that we’re living in!
So, Father, I pray for this grace to really rest upon us as a church family—a grace that can celebrate process, a grace that can look ahead and give thanks no matter what, just because we know You’re sovereign and we know that You’re good and that You work all things together for good! We honor You for that, and we thank You that Your promise holds sure in the midst of great difficulty! We acknowledge that You are the faithful one—absolutely faithful, absolutely true—and we give You thanks.
I want to ask if there’s anybody in the room that has never made a personal commitment to follow Jesus, for Jesus to forgive you of all sin—to do what the Bible calls be born again. It’s actually a change from the inside out; it’s not something any of us can do for ourselves, but in our faith in Christ, something changes in us where we become completely new people. It’s only possible by God’s goodness and kindness.
If there’s anyone here who would say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave the building until I know I have found peace with God. I want to know what it is to be born again.» You may be online; if you’re online, just put it in the chat room and we’ll have one of our pastors get to you and talk with you. But anyone in the room, if that’s you, I want you to just put a hand up and say, «Bill, that’s me! I don’t want to leave until I know what it is to be forgiven! Until I know what it is to have peace with God!» Real quick, right here—thank you! Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!
Anybody else? If I don’t see you, wave your hand at me! Okay, we’ve got a couple of you, at least two that I can see! We honor you for that! We’ve all done exactly what you’re doing now. As the Holy Spirit is doing this—this may be unusual language for you—but the Holy Spirit is going to bring about a tremendous transformation in your personal life because of this simple confession of faith in Christ!
I’m going to ask everyone to stand, but no moving around other than that. Everyone stand, if you would please. I want to ask the two—there may have been more that I missed—but anyone who is receiving Christ at this moment, I want to ask for two things to happen at the same time. Everyone else, please hold your places. Ministry team, if you’d quickly come to the front. At the same time, I’d like for these two to come right over here. We have friends we know and trust that want you to come over here and talk with them, and they’re going to pray with you.
Yes, come right on down over here! The other one over here, just come on down! We’d love to meet with you and pray with you! And Jesus, why don’t you bless these—there’s going to be a great miracle in their lives right now!